The Trump administration announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in July. But a holdover Biden-Harris decision to designate the Okefenokee Swamp as a World Heritage Site (WHS) could threaten President Trump’s true conservation agenda.
In my new CFACT Conservation Country report, I investigated this December 2024 Biden-Harris administration policy. Currently, 92 percent of Okefenokee Swamp- or 407,000 acres - is a federally-managed national wildlife refuge overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). It’s also open to hunting and fishing opportunities.
All three Georgia counties bordering the swap – Charlton, Ware, and most recently Clinch County in October - adopted ordinances opposing the UNESCO bid.
Some UNESCO bid supporters argue that U.S. sovereignty won’t be threatened. Other proponents dismissed concerns, claiming the UNESCO WHS designation is akin to a “five-star Yelp review” and nothing else. Yet the concerned citizens I interviewed - those closest to Okefenokee Swamp - are skeptical of the United Nations coming into their backyard.
“I went and saw one of the presentations they had out at the fairground, and I wasn't pleased with what I saw,” Ware County Commissioner Barry Cox explained. “All of my constituents…they contacted me, and they [were] all against it. So I did their will, and we created a resolution against it.”
In a May 2024 Ware County ballot, Question 11 asked voters if they favored the UNESCO bid. Over 2,400 (78 percent) residents overwhelmingly voted against it, while over 700 - or about 22 percent - supported it.
“I don’t like any organization that I would consider an entangling alliance,” Drew Jones, Charlton County Commissioner, added. “Many of the UNESCO members are adversarial nations. China, Russia, Afghanistan– all would sit around a table and potentially vote on what should be domestic issues.”
Commissioner Jones conveyed his concerns about public access, stating, “There could be concerns about the property adjacent to the swamp. They could come along and say no hunting, no clear-cutting, no herbiciding outside the refuge boundary. They could say, ‘Oh, we need a buffer zone.’ You know, ‘there’s hunting too close. There’s logging too close.”
Some UNESCO World Heritage Sites have a mixed track record here and abroad.
Last year, Leiden University in the Netherlands warned that UNESCO WHS status “comes at a cost to the local population’s human rights” because international interests frequently clash with impacted individuals and communities.
Even the New York Times warned in 2023 that being inscribed in the World Heritage List can be “a curse,” citing a case study involving Fort Jesus in Mombasa, Kenya. The NYT reports the touted tourism benefits of the WHS designation hadn’t materialized in Fort Jesus.
“Locals don’t want to talk about being a World Heritage site anymore and they feel shortchanged. Our houses are shabby, we have the money, but we cannot fix them,” local historian Peter Tolle told the publication. Tolle added that they’re “trapped” by UNESCO rules and lack funds, as agency regulations bar locals from updating houses located near World Heritage sites.
As of this writing, 26 American sites are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. But as Travis Sancutary, co-founder of Americans for the Okefenokee, told me, visitation is largely unaffected - or even decreased - at WHS sites, including already popular National Parks.
“The 26 World Heritage Sites that already exist have really not shown any increase in tourism after being designated a World Heritage Site. Many of them had steady increase[s] prior to designation, and then that carried on right after. Some [have] been kind of up and down. There's just really no correlation,” Sanctuary elaborated.
The Trump administration withdrew from UNESCO a second time in July. This UNESCO exit will be finalized on December 31, 2026. The last withdrawal occurred in 2018.
“UNESCO works to advance divisive social and cultural causes and maintains an outsized focus on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in July.
“I deeply regret President Donald Trump's decision to once again withdraw the United States of America from UNESCO – a decision that will take effect at the end of December 2026,” Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO remarked in response. “This decision contradicts the fundamental principles of multilateralism, and may affect first and foremost our many partners in the United States of America— communities seeking site inscription on the World Heritage List, Creative City status, and University Chairs.”
In the most recent UNESCO WHS Summer 2025 meeting, the organization affirmed its support for the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - namely Goal 11.4 concerning the protection of cultural and natural heritage. The July 2025 document says the agency would further “climate action with World Heritage” in accordance with UN SDG Goal 13 to “combat climate change.” Unsurprisingly, this is where Biden’s 30-by-30 rewilding policy was derived from.
Despite a pending U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO, the Okefenokee bid could still proceed unless the Trump administration takes action. The stakeholders I interviewed revealed the UNESCO bid vote could come as soon as next summer.
But Brooks Strickland, another Americans for the Okefenokee activist, is hopeful the Trump administration will terminate the bid.
“The Department of the Interior can reject this bid,” Strickland said. “We don't want global influence here. President Trump took us out of UNESCO recently. He understands the concern.”
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